


Having Visited This World

by ottergirl



Series: Indulgence in the fancy house [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fancy Bathrooms, M/M, Masturbation in Shower, National Trust house, Oral Sex, Sensuality, Shower Sex, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:48:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27212974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottergirl/pseuds/ottergirl
Summary: On the outside of the apocalypse, Jon and Martin take some time for themselves.Set between MAG 180 and MAG 181, in the National Trust house.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Indulgence in the fancy house [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986739
Comments: 12
Kudos: 144





	Having Visited This World

Jon is the first of them to wake. He’s not sure what rouses him out of a sleep so blank and deep and mindless it could be the sleep of the dead: the noises a very old house makes settling into itself late at night, maybe, or the awareness of weeks’, or perhaps months’ worth of grime caked into his skin, or other needs he’s become disused to over their journey. Such as the need to sleep itself, which overcame Martin and him so powerfully hours (days?) ago. Right now there is hunger, thirst, the itching need for a shower, the craving for—

He doesn’t consider how he decides to reach out to the nightstand and encounter an ashtray and a book of matches. It’s certainly not that he _knows_ those things are there. Patting the jacket he’s wearing over a couple of layers of shirts, all his clothing in a state that doesn’t bear thinking about, he feels the outline of a pack of cigarettes in an inner breast pocket. God, he’d forgotten even taking them along when they left the safehouse.

There’s no need to throw off any covers: he woke to find Martin and himself laid out across the bed, on top of the thick comforter and deep mattress, four posts and a gauzy canopy of curtains around them. Both of them still fully clothed, except for their shoes, which he spots neatly lined up against a wall. Squinting at them in the pale moonlight slanting in from a window, he sees they appear to have been cleaned. It ought to make him uneasy, maybe, but he’s still too weary—still too bemused and a little bit delighted, not to _know_ —to care much about it. 

And he wants a cigarette. Badly.

The floor is solid hardwood beneath his feet, cold through his socks. Moonlight limns the heavy shapes of furniture in silver. He goes to a window, which is curtained and heavily paned, unlocked, and opens it a crack before lighting one. At the first draw of nicotine into his lungs, Jon almost cries.

How has he not missed this? The same way he hasn’t missed food or sleep, he supposes. Fear and knowledge have kept him sated. But now he has neither, and other hungers are awakening in their stead. The beginning of a headache throbs just above his right eye, caffeine withdrawal, he thinks, but the nicotine soothes it. God, a cup of coffee would be pure ecstasy. He hasn’t missed it before now, but there seem to be lots of things gone unmissed until this moment. 

Like a shower. The smell of the cigarette is making him aware of other stenches, and sniffing a sleeve of his jacket has his eyes watering. He suppresses a cough and sheds the jacket, the fabric stiff and stained, letting it crumple to the floor by the window, and once started the urge to strip away all the other grimy layers is irresistible. A place like this has a bathroom, surely. It’s at that moment that he spots the door slightly ajar in the wall opposite to the bed.

It’s like he’d imagine a bathroom in a posh hotel suite, Jon thinks, having flipped on the light after easing the door shut behind him, quiet so it won’t wake Martin, standing now blinking and squinting on the polished marble floor. A mix of vintage and modern luxury, with brass fixtures and elegant lamps in sconces, subtle wallpaper over half-tiled walls, a huge mirror with a gilt frame stretched above the double sinks. There is both a deep bathtub and a walk-in shower. Jon eyes the tub, tempted for a moment until he notices the ominous resemblance of the clawed feet to spider legs. Besides that, the idea of sitting in water with layers of grime sloughing off his skin is not a pretty one, so the shower it will be.

The water rattles in the pipes for a second or two after he turns the handles before bursting from the spigot, spattering against the tiles with a cacophonous sound and swiftly filling the room with steam. Jon sheds the rest of his clothing with haste, nudging the dirty pile out of the way with his bare foot. He’s glad for the obscuring steam, suspecting he’s not much to look at after however long it’s been walking through the apocalypse, carrying little other than his collection of scars. The ones from Daisy stretch painfully over his leg, closed now but still swollen and angrily red, and he winces slightly when he steps into the shower and the spray first runs over his skin. He’s left it as hot as he can stand, the pressure of the water a kind of battery, an assault over his shoulders and back, over his head when he turns into it and lets it soak into his hair, bent forward a little, eyes closed.

Martin will love this, he thinks, and Jon feels an aching bolt of desire for him, so swift and sharp it makes him gasp.

His fingers tremble as he reaches for the pump of a shampoo bottle. The scent of it is citrus and herbal, heady, permeating the humid air as he starts to work it into his hair, and he feels the thinness of his own fingers scrubbing against his scalp and the too-long strands of dirty hair soaking and softening with the mild lather, a strangeness in his own touch. The water swirling down the drain between his feet is gray at first, then begins to run clearer when he finds a green-tinted bar of soap and a flannel. He scrubs himself all over while the shampoo runs out of his hair, blinking to keep it from his eyes, and doesn’t look down at himself any more than he has to. It’s as though, having neglected the very act of getting clean for so long, he’s forgotten how to do it—forgotten the touch of his hands and the sight of his own body, scars and skin and missing ribs, the signals of deprivation and ill-use. It’s as though he expects to see something monstrous. The idea of being human, however temporarily, makes him uneasy with himself.

But he thinks of Martin again, and Jon catches his breath. His eyes close. Martin wouldn’t care if he looked like something hollowed down to the ghost of itself. He’d scold him for his unforgiving scrubbing, probably, and take the cloth from him and do it all over again himself, but slower, gentler, lingering over Jon’s body in a way that suggests it’s deserving of care. And that would be—

His breath shivers a little. He feels himself getting hard. He imagines Martin’s hands on him in place of his own. He’d probably forgo the cloth entirely, rub the soap between his palms and massage them down Jon’s shoulders and back, around to his pitifully thin chest and stomach, down to his hips, to…

He’s paused, motionless, with the cloth against his abdomen. Then it drops from his fingers, and Jon reaches out to brace a hand against the tiled wall, as the other reaches down to his cock.

He gasps at the touch, the unfamiliar warmth of skin to skin contact, made blood-hot by the rushing water, the rasp of calluses on his fingers and palm, fuck, when did his hands get so rough? He bites his lip and imagines Martin’s hand on him instead. He would grip him like—like this, warm, stroking him slowly, trying to tease, maybe, get Jon to laugh or squirm or demand more. Circle his thumb over the head of his cock, catching the slick dampness there that isn’t from the water, stroke down his length and back up again, fingers dragging it out, making him feel the motion, feel what it’s like to be enfolded and touched. He would kiss Jon’s shoulders and neck, hum little words of encouragement in his ear when he caught his breath, when he tried to bite back his moans.

His knees feel weak—lack of sleep, lack of food—and Jon leans harder against the tiles, strokes himself faster. Martin wouldn’t let him stumble. Martin would be able to hold him up one-handed. And when Jon finished he could let his knees give way, he could sink down to them and care for Martin, too, the way Martin cares for him. 

His breath stutters with a short, rough sound. Jon leans his forehead, too, against the tile, the coolness of it a shock against the heat surrounding him, the flush in his skin. There’s so much, _so much_ to feel. He can taste the urgency for it in the back of his throat, the desperation for relief which is at this moment greater than any other need. He grips his cock tighter, feeling the sharp pleasure rise in him—he can’t see beyond these walls, he can’t know anything other than this moment—and he works himself hard to completion, hearing his own ragged moan as he comes. 

The water spatters down, over his feverish skin, washing his come down the drain. Easing his grip around his softening cock, Jon catches his breath, laughs a little in amazement. The sense of settling into his own skin, inhabiting his body—his base, limited, human body—is still so strange, almost alien to him. But the throb of pleasure lingers, making him feel just a little bit at home. 

Taking up the bar of soap, he slowly begins to lather his skin again. Noticing, this time, how heavy the scent is, richly herbal, dragged into his lungs like the smell of a garden gone riotous. Noticing how the lather feels slippery and soft, pleasant on his skin: maybe because it’s cleaner now, maybe he can feel more with the casing of dirt and grime and horror washed away. Soap slips down his legs and froths around his feet, between his toes, before swirling down the drain. His hair lays soft and wet over his forehead and ears, down the nape of his neck.

Over the deafening spray he can barely hear the sound of the door opening, but he does and he stills suddenly, the pulse in his ears seeming to match the thunder of water. Martin’s voice, thick and sleepy: “Jon?”

For a moment Jon can only stand still, rooted in place by the sharp aching pleasure in him at hearing Martin’s voice, the awareness of him so near he can almost reach out and touch him. A kind of uncomplicated joy, here in this place out of the world that they’ve come to.

“In here, Martin.” He emerges from the obfuscating steam. Martin, blinking in the doorway against the assault of light, looks at him and makes a sound of pure longing. Jon smiles: he’d be flattered if he didn’t think it was mostly for the shower. “Well, come on.”

Martin begins to strip off his clothes so fast he almost falls over. Jon laughs and steps out to help him, nearly skidding himself on the gleaming floor. “No, don’t, you’ll fall,” Martin says, catching him instead, and Jon grabs him and pulls him, herds him, all but shoves him bodily (“Jon, socks!”) into the shower.

Martin gasps as the spray hits him, red curls instantly plastered to his forehead, turning a dark auburn as water soaks into them. He stands still for a moment, as though getting his bearings, blinking a little dazedly at Jon—lashes soaked into clumps, they’re such long lashes, framing his disarming eyes. Martin is looking at him with the same frank affection he usually does, a little bit questioning, and Jon kisses him softly like an answer, not caring about grime or stale mouths.

“Good morning to you, too,” Martin says when they part, a little shakily.

“Mm. Is it morning?” Jon reaches past him for the shampoo. 

“Still dark out,” Martin answers, ducking his head in an absent sort of way as Jon gets his hands into his hair. “Think we’re the only ones awake, probably a good thing—ohhh, Christ, Jon…”

Jon scrubs into his curls, digging his fingers into his scalp, relishing the frankly obscene sounds Martin makes in response. It is a good thing, he thinks, to be the only ones awake, because he doesn’t want to have to consider a single necessity outside of this: getting his hands on Martin, getting him clean, touching as much of him as he can. Annabelle, Mikaele, where they are, what this place is—all that can wait. Martin’s head drops to his shoulder, and Jon curls a possessive hand over the nape of his neck as he finishes shampooing and reaches for the soap. “You don’t have to,” Martin says plaintively, and Jon hushes him, lathering up as much of him as he can reach. Martin groans a little, leaning into him. “Really, I can—”

“Let me.” Jon maneuvers him around so he can wash his back. Martin’s freckled shoulders round briefly and then relax as Jon leans into him in turn, ostensibly to reach more of him and really just to nuzzle into his citrus-and-herb scented hair, clean and soft now, and then against his neck and shoulders, the way he imagined Martin doing to him. Jon can’t quite surround him the same way, but he can make his best attempt. Martin makes more of those soft noises, and moves where Jon directs him, sweet and acquiescent, like someone in a dream. When he turns him around again he can see that Martin’s getting hard. He’s pink-cheeked, from the heat of the water, probably, which has not at all abated; the flush spreads becomingly down his chest. 

Any fraction of distance between them, Jon longs to close. Within his skin now he is only himself, and there is something so profoundly lonely in that that it’s almost sweet. Martin exerts a pull on him, the tremor in his hands and the hook in his chest, Jon touching him with a hunger to feel all, to take what there is of Martin that can only be known in the boundaries of skin and the ache of physical desire. 

He mouths softly at Martin’s neck, pressed against him, both of them heated, wet, the water rushing down, soap slippery in his fingers, gliding dreamily over Martin’s skin. Martin grips convulsively at his hips, breath catching in his chest, his pulse wild where Jon worries it with gentle, insistent teeth. “Jon— _God_ , Jon…”

He tips his cheek to Martin’s. “It’s...been some time, hasn’t it?” he murmurs, and Martin nods faintly. He draws Jon in close with a tender strength, their limbs entangling, and the soap drops from Jon’s slippery fingers. He wants this, he wants to be so close as to feel a part of Martin, his heartbeat and struggling breath, and he wants to keep caring for him. As Martin kisses his unresisting mouth, he fits a hand between them and rakes his fingers through the wet gingery curls on Martin’s chest and stomach, gliding down beneath his navel, through his pubic hair, palm grazing his cock before he cups the weight of his balls. Martin whimpers against his lips.

More of this, Jon thinks, distractedly, hungrily, Martin’s fingers tangling in his hair. He feels breathless, devoured; he breaks away, leaning his forehead to Martin’s for a moment, kneading him in his hand, and then he eases back and sinks down to his knees, just as he imagined before. His fingers wrap around his cock and guide it to his mouth. Martin is pleading, urgent, fingers caught in Jon’s hair, their grasp loosening anxiously and then tightening again. He has always been this way, never wanting to push too hard, never grasping after more than he thinks he deserves. Jon pays no attention to any of that. He lets Martin sink into his mouth, until he is full with him, the weight of his cock throbbing on his tongue. 

_Yes,_ he would say, if his mouth weren’t full, if he weren’t sucking Martin down to the root, _like this, yes, is it good?_ He can’t know it now, not for certain. He doesn’t try to know, usually, but desire is such a heavy thing, it comes across so blatantly, it makes itself heard.

But he can hear Martin’s moans above the thunder of water, can feel him taut with need, in a losing battle with himself not to fuck Jon’s mouth, a battle Jon is doing his best to make him lose, taking as much of him as he can and still trying to swallow more, hollowing his cheeks to suck around the length of his cock. The heat of the water hasn’t abated for a moment, pouring down from above, the steam so heavy it feels like he must drag it into his lungs when he pulls back for a breath or two, stroking Martin in his hand while the head of his cock still rests on his tongue. He feels Martin’s hands running through his hair, wet strands dragged between his fingers and gripped again when Jon takes him back into his mouth. Water pours down on them both, heavy and muffling, and there nothing outside of this, the two of them, the thunder of the water and the pulse beneath his ribs.

Martin cries out when he comes, hips jerking to Jon’s mouth, the grip of his fingers in his hair nearly vicious. It’s as though he feels Martin’s need pouring through him, and he wants it all, hungry for it, swallowing his seed, sucking relentlessly to drag out his pleasure until the sound Martin makes is a whimper and his fingers tug at Jon’s hair, prompting him to draw back. It’s good to be needed. Jon can’t protect him here, he can’t watch him relentlessly, forever an eye trained on him to make sure he is safe and as well as a person can be in the midst of the apocalypse—none of that in this place, but he can still give him pleasure. 

“Jon,” Martin is murmuring over the commotion of water, petting his cheek with urgent fingers, “Jon,” just his name, over and over, the sound of it bringing an aching kind of bliss beneath the join of his ribs. 

He leans against Martin’s hip, closing his eyes. Martin’s fingers stroke through his wet hair, tender.

“Getting long,” he says, hushed, strands of hair slipping through his grasp, and Jon nods.

“I think it’s grown overnight.”

“We’re both a bit overgrown—this place makes you notice, doesn't it?” Martin’s fingers tug a little, wistfully. Jon takes that as his cue to get to his feet. His knee creaks when he does, reminding him of inflamed scars, barely-healed injury, and Martin grabs hold of him: they wind up clinging to one another, tightly, beneath the water pouring down. 

“Jon,” Martin whispers, nosing into his hair, “do you—I could—”

He shakes his head, tightening his arms around Martin’s middle. “I, ah, I took care of it. Before you came in.”

“Oh. Wish I’d seen that.” He can hear the smile in Martin’s voice, mutters something in response, pushing his face into Martin’s neck. They could stand here forever, he thinks, and the water wouldn’t even get cold. They might shrivel to prunes, but the thought is not without its appeal.

But he is beginning to feel a bit drowned, and so at last, reluctantly, Jon untangles himself and reaches to turn off the shower. Martin sighs deeply, but doesn’t stop him, and they both standing blinking in the sudden cessation of noise and the pounding of the spray, dripping, flushed and wet. The thought of what is waiting for them beyond these walls makes Jon want to sigh too. Though the chance to take a statement from Mikaele Salesa…

There is curiosity, the burgeoning simmer of it low in his belly, but not the burning, all-consuming need to know. The absence of it leaves Jon feeling light and strange, almost hollow. Neither of them evince much desire to move, the steam still thick and warm around them, though their dripping bodies will soon feel the cold. Martin’s hands run up and down Jon’s arms, as though for the sheer pleasure of touch, and Jon leans into him, letting Martin support his weight.

“I suppose we eventually must…” He smothers the words into Martin’s shoulder, and waves a hand meant to encompass Annabelle, Salesa, the rest of the house. And all the horror waiting beyond, somewhere outside the boundaries of this place.

One of Martin’s hands cradles his head. “Yeah, ‘spose. Though—I mean—we don’t have to _now_ , do we?”

The hand cradling the back of Jon’s head is beguiling him to stay exactly where it is. After a moment, he gives a slow shake of his head.

Martin sounds relieved. “Yeah. We could just let them think we’re still asleep. For a little while, anyway.”

Jon turns his head, pillowing it more comfortably against Martin’s shoulder, while his arms slip around his waist. “We could do that,” he says, quiet. “I think we’ve earned the rest.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, feedback greatly appreciated! Visit me on tumblr @ clmariewrites.


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